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Senate "Compromise" Bill Must Change, Or This Country Will Change Forever

May 16, 2006

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let's get to the president's speech on immigration last night. What you saw, what you heard, I think, is a sincere leader trying to lead the nation. Then we got the third rail of third rails here, illegal immigration, and the horses are out of the barn on this. You can lock the door to the barn all you want, and you can say (muttering), but when the horses are gone, the horses are gone, and this is one of these issues. You heard the president. You saw him trying to solve a problem that previous leaders and politicians created, ignored, and encouraged.
It's a tough thing. I mean, the base is angry at him. At least some people, according to my e-mails, are livid. The liberals on this still deserve our attention, because they can sit out there and they can bellyache and they can whine and they can moan all day long, but they're not offering one solution, and they are not for any kind of enforcement whatsoever, and yet they're sitting around trying to just capitalize on this without even participating in it, judging by the mainstream media's reaction today. I mean, the New York Times has run a sympathetic story by Elisabeth Bumiller on just how nice and thorough and consistent Bush is on Mexicans and immigration and what it means to the country and blah, blah, blah.The LA Times liked it, and the Washington Post liked it, and they all used the word "moderate." The president struck a middle chord. All right, well, we're going to find out real quick, since that's what the Drive-By Media is saying, I want you to pay special attention to the polls because we are always told that elections in this country are won by the party that best courts the undecided vote, the moderates, the independents, the middle ground, because the base of both parties you take for granted, they cancel each other out, but that great unwashed in the middle in there, that's who we go get. Okay. So if the Drive-By Media wants to anoint the president's speech last night as a big appeal to the center, then his approval numbers ought to skyrocket if this is indeed a country of moderates. So let's just wait and see what the next approval numbers from Drive-By Media polls show us. Let's listen to a summary here. This is a montage. Cut to the chase of the five points that the president made in his speech last night about dealing with the problem.

THE PRESIDENT: First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. A key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. Fourth, we must face the reality that millions of illegal immigrants are here already. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.
RUSH: All right, some high points in here. There's some good stuff in there, but people are asking today, is it just words? They've heard it before. This is a speech that really didn't contain a whole lot new, and there are others who say, yeah, it did, but I didn't hear the president's heart in this. I'm getting feedback that runs the gamut. But I want to go through some of these points. But before I do, the one thing that really just sent me over the edge yesterday was the analysis by Senator Sessions and Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation on this so-called compromise bill in the Senate, the Hagel-Martinez Bill: 193 to 217 million new legal immigrants is what over the next 20 years is what is possible in this particular piece of legislation. The president last night threw this back into Congress' lap. He specifically mentioned Congress in this speech, House and Senate, and told them to get their rear ends in gear and get something done here, because there are a number of competing bills. The House, folks, is where the solution to this problem is, and everybody's focusing on the Senate, and this Senate bill is just scary. I mean, this Senate bill is going to create a strain on the welfare state like you have never seen: 193 million new legal immigrants! This is a number greater than 60% of the current US population in the next 20 years. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, conducted a separate analysis that reached similar results. We told you about his numbers yesterday, as high as 217 million legal, slash, illegal.

They're called legal because it will take illegals and make them legal over the course of the next 20 years. In fact, let me grab this bit about the strain on the welfare system that all of this would cause, which would bust it. Now, I've talked to a lot of people that say, "You know, Rush, you were asking a question yesterday: what is the real reason all this is going on?" and people have said to me, "Rush, it's real simple. Members of Congress are gutless, and they have no intention of reforming Social Security or Medicare or any of these entitlements, and they need countless new workers to contribute to Social Security so the baby boomers and the Generation Y and that slothful generation Hillary was talking about will have their Social Security, because the program is going bankrupt."
Then you go to Barron's Magazine and you find that this is the first year that the Social Security surplus will not cover Medicare payments. Then you combine these two and say okay, maybe this is what's really going on. Maybe these cowards in Washington who are afraid to reform a program because it's the third rail, Social Security, you don't touch it, the way you keep it going is by importing all these new employees, new workers. Well, that sounds good until you take it a step further. Look at the pressure on those very programs all of these immigrants are going to be applying in terms of receiving benefits, and if they are low wage, minimum wage or barely above that, just how much are they going to be contributing anyway to the overall pool that pays out benefits? So the impact on these programs would more than cancel out whatever benefit these new "legal illegals" and their contributions would be to these programs. I gotta take a break. We'll do that, we'll be back and continue. A lot of people asking me about this ID card, what is this biometric ID card that the president talked about?
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: A lot of people are asking me, Rush, what is this biometric card that the president was talking about? A key part of the system would be a new ID card for every legal foreign worker. All right, now, this is interesting. One of the cards under consideration is a card called IronGate. It's by a company, Digital Defense, and you can go to their website and see it; mydigitaldefense.com is their Website, and the IronGate biocard basically works because it has your fingerprint deeply embedded in the card, and it can't be duplicated; it cannot be counterfeited. What happens is, according to the website, an IronGate biocard user registers their biocard and self-enrolls their fingerprints by placing a finger or thumb on the biocard scan engine. This generates a unique digital certificate directly onto the biocard.

Once an IronGate biocard user is registered and enrolled, only then can the industry's first on-card authentication process take place through the wireless transmission of a multi-frequency band sending only the digital certificate. A user's biometric data never leaves the IronGate biocard. The stored biometric information can't be breached, cannot be duplicated if the card is lost or stolen, provides maximum security. This is just one of the cards that I think is being considered for this. Now, stop and think, though, for a minute. Every legal foreign worker will be given one of these cards. Theoretically if you don't have one of these cards, you don't get a job; you don't get a paycheck; you don't get a welfare check. You don't get any of this.
How long is it going to take to get one of these cards if this actually happens, and I don't know if this is in the "compromise bill" in the Senate. How long is this going to take to register and find every legal foreign worker, get them one of these cards, thereby establishing who's illegal? It may be possible, but the people that believe in this say there's no way that you can counterfeit this, there is no way that you can transfer this to somebody else. It is one of the latest cutting edge technological advances. I'm just responding to some of the e-mail. I've been reading it last night, because I've been fascinated by people's reaction to the speech. This issue is crucial to the future of the country.
When you read the reports, and we put them on the website, we linked to them last night, the Jeff Sessions analysis and the Heritage Foundation analysis, anywhere from 193 to 217 million new legal immigrants in the next 20 years. We were never intended to assimilate that many people. That's two-thirds of the population of the country as it exists today. The Heritage Foundation report that was released by Robert Rector, who is one of the nation's leading authorities on poverty and welfare, by the way, and I've quoted him countless times during the history of this program. In fact, by the way, speaking of poverty, there's a story by some organization concerned now that obesity is running rampant among those in poverty.
You read that and say, "Okay," you do a sort of, "What was that?" Obesity running rampant in poverty? I glossed over that the first time. You go back and say, "How can this be?" It used to be thought that obesity was one of the problems of affluence. Now obesity is a problem in poverty? What are you laughing at? I kid you not. There's this actual story. I don't care if they're eating the wrong kinds of food; they're eating too much food. They're eating lots of the wrong kinds of food is the point if they're obese. At any rate, Robert Rector has estimated that the compromise bill, the Hagel-Martinez Bill would admit whatever it is, 103 to 193. It depends on whether their estimates, and they've used conservative estimates manifest themselves. If their estimates prove out, the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years. The largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years! Now, when you hear "welfare state," what do you hear? What do you envision? You envision Democrat victims; you envision Democrat voters. So the question is: Why is the GOP complicit in this? Jeff Sessions, the debate on this bill starts today. Sessions is going to go to the floor of the Senate and start using some of these numbers. It's a 614-page bill, and that's where the action is on this, folks, is the legislation that all of a sudden now we have to have, to deal with this immigration issue.

The president made a speech last night, you can think whatever you want of the speech, but the action is now in the Senate. Believe me, the House bill is where the solution to this needs to be. The House of Representatives, run by conservative Republicans, is the last great hope of the future of the country when it comes to this issue, folks, and I do not say that lightly, because if anything like this compromise bill offered by two Republicans, Hagel and Martinez, ends up being anywhere near what it is now, the results of this you can't even imagine. You'll have to be around for 20 years to see it take place.
The entire demographic makeup, the ethnic makeup, so many other aspects of our demography will change dramatically in ways that will make the country unrecognizable, and you have to know that people behind this are aware of it. They wrote the bill. Sessions' point is he doesn't think too many senators have read it, that's why he did an analysis of it and is going to make the numbers the focal point of his debate. When I saw this yesterday, this is what got me thinking about this in a whole different way, because this is totally unnecessary what's happening now, it's, "Hello? We need some voters and we need some welfare state victims," and, "Hello Democrats," blah, blah.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: In the Hagel-Martinez compromise bill, amnesty would be granted to about ten million illegals (story). That's not the problem. The real growth in the immigrant population would come later. As part of the bill, the annual flow of legal immigrants allowed into the U.S. would more than double to more than two million annually. In addition, the guest-worker program in the bill would bring in 325,000 new workers annually who could later apply for citizenship. That population would grow exponentially from there because the millions of new citizens would be permitted to bring along their extended families. "Also, [Jeff] Sessions said, the bill includes 'escalating caps,' which would raise the number of immigrants allowed in as more people seek to enter the U.S. 'The impact of this increase in legal immigration dwarfs the magnitude of the amnesty provisions,' said Mr. Rector, who has followed Congress for 25 years. He called the bill 'the most dramatic piece of legislation in my experience.'" Then on the other end of the spectrum, I've been looking at a lot of places here today. "Criminalizing Economic Self-Interest" is a piece by Lee Harris at Tech Central Station. Now, I don't know much about Tech Central Station. I've quoted a lot of things from Tech Central Station. I like them. Are these guys basically a bunch of Libertarians, or are they just techies?

I don't know. I would have to say this sounds like a pretty Libertarian piece. I guess to summarize this piece, you'd have to say: Be serious; you can't enforce the law. Come on, what are we talking about here, folks? We can't enforce the law. Everybody is demanding enforcement. We can't enforce it. He explains why. He says, "[T]here are two ways to deal with this problem. First, you simply ship back all the illegal immigrants who are willing to work cheaper than Americans, thereby eliminating them altogether from the labor market, in which case the cost of brawn will rise to the point where Americans will again be willing to do the work previous done by illegal immigrants.
"Second, you can try to penalize those companies that rely on illegal immigrants, until the point is reached where, due to active and vigilant government interference in the day-to-day operation of thousands upon thousands of small businesses, each and every labor-intensive business will be so harassed by legal sanctions that they will be forced to adopt a policy of hiring only Americans, at which time the illegal immigrants will simply pack up their bags and go back home." Everybody says that that's going to happen. In a hypothetical, theoretical sense, everybody says, "Yeah, if you just eliminate the job opportunities, they'll have no choice but to go back home."
Where does that come from? Anybody ever heard of the social safety net in this country? Why do we assume they'll just go back home. They left home for a reason. Yeah, they came here for a job, but if they can't get a job, fine, we'll take care of them because we're a compassionate people. I don't think all of them would go home. I think that's a mistake a lot of people are making. Anyway that's just a little aside. "It is little wonder then that so many people think the solution to the problem of immigration lies in the second method -- enforcing the current laws and thereby increasing the real cost to businesses of hiring illegal immigrants through fines and the threat of costly legal action.
"But what those who take this approach fail to understand is that, in order to make the second method work, it is not enough to make examples of certain businesses who hire illegal immigrants -- the government would have to make it clear to each and every business that it cannot risk hiring illegal immigrants because of the certainty of the fact that they would get caught. But how can the government make thousands and thousands of small businesses feel certain that they would get caught except by actually monitoring, on a virtually day by day basis, their hiring practices? And how much bigger would our already big government have to get in order to achieve that ability to micro-manage all the independent businesses that use illegal immigrants as laborers? "And who would pay for this new army of bureaucrats, but the American people themselves? ... The same logic applies to the idea of targeting the big companies that hire illegal immigrants. Yes, you might be able to get them to obey the law, but the smaller companies, who are not by definition exposed to the same degree of risk, will simply take over those customers who would rather have cheaper service provided to them by the labor of illegal[s]... But what is the point of tougher laws if these laws only penalize, economically, the few who obey them, while rewarding the many who do not? For small businesses, running risks is an everyday occurrence, and where the risk is judged to be minimal, and the rewards of taking the risk are great, the risk will be run.

"Thus, while large companies may comply with the new Georgia law, the tiny ones won't," and so this is a Libertarian website. Lee Harris is the author of Civilization and Its Enemies, and his whole point here is, you think we can enforce the law on the books, you are sadly mistaken. I don't know; the NSA is doing a pretty good jobs of spying on us domestically, the libs say. Why not have the NSA spy on businesses? Anyway, I'm throwing all these things out for you to react to. Did you hear what Dingy Harry said? This is simply mindless. Dingy Harry said, "It's not enough for President Bush to tell us he wants to increase security at the borders. After all, he's had five years to do it. If he wants to be credible on border security, he must acknowledge his mistakes and commit to fixing them."
What is he talking about? Could I see Dingy Harry's border security measure? Could I see any Democrats' proposal on immigration? They are getting away with absolutely nothing. They're getting away with taking a position on nothing. They're getting away with being spectators only. They are getting away without committing one way or the other on this, but we all know where they stand, and that is destroy Bush and create as many new victims and voters as possible. We know they're out there recruiting in these illegal immigrant marches. Dick Durbin did the Democrat response last night. We have a couple of bites from Senator Durbin. Here is the first.
DURBIN: We must act now to secure our borders and fix our broken immigration system, but we don't need a military solution to break a political stalemate. We need leadership. Democrats are willing to support any reasonable plan that will secure our borders, including the deployment of National Guard troops. But Americans don't want a plan that's been cobbled together to win political favor. This cannot turn into another long-term military deployment with no clear plan.
RUSH: Oh, give me a break. What's your alternative, senator? What's your idea? This is cowardice on display. We must act now to secure our borders and fix our broken system, but we don't need a military solution to break a political stalemate. I didn't hear a solution and I never will hear a solution from the Democrats. Durbin last couldn't decide whether he agrees with Bush or not, but he definitely has no alternative. They didn't know what to do with this last night so they're just taking their usual potshots. Here's the second bite we have of Durbin.
DURBIN: We know where the House Republicans stand. They want to criminalize undocumented immigrants and the nurses, volunteers, and people of faith who helped them --RUSH: Come on. That's absurd.

DURBIN: -- supports tough, fair, comprehensive reform. Now he must lead. The president has the power to call up the National Guard to patrol our border, but now he must summon the power to lead his own Republican forces in Congress to support a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.
RUSH: The Democrats are nowhere near it. This is amazing. They're getting a free pass on this. They are total spectators. They get to stand around and watch and then act as referees, if you will, on what they think is good or bad, and they continue to misstate the case. This business "we know where the House Republicans stand, they want to criminalize undocumented immigrants and the nurses," and so forth. There's even a story in my immigration stack today that immigration activists are putting out there that illegals will not even be given communion in church, and it's gotten to the point now of absurdity. But Senator Durbin, the truth on this criminalization business is, that was in the House bill, and the Republicans wanted to take it out, and Democrats voted against taking it out.
Democrats voted for leaving in the criminalization of the illegals in America today, precisely so that Durbin could run around and say like he said last night what you just heard, lies and distortions about what the Republicans want to do. If there's anybody doing political posturing, both parties are. But there is still a question in my mind, is anything really going to get done by the election? Because everybody's all revved up, the president passed it off to Congress last night, he makes his speech, says, "Okay, members of the House and Senate, I want you to work on this," but I will be stunned if they actually come up with a bill before November. Because once people hear the details, and a lot of people hear the details of what's in this so-called compromise -- by the way, Kennedy-McCain, McCain-Kennedy, McCain's name comes first, right? McCain-Kennedy. I mean, it's essentially the same thing, Hagel-Martinez is just a compromise. It's all bogus, and it's exceedingly dangerous.
BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Now, folks, if you've been with us since the top of the program, a theme should have evolved or made itself aware in your mind. And that is, I know there are a lot of you out there, "Damn Republicans, they're selling us all out. We ought to throw them out. The hell with (muttering)." You know you've been out there, you've been out there for a while, and this issue illustrates that a lot of Republicans are simply not conservatives, but I'll tell you what does stand out as you listen to the brilliant contents of the opening of this program to date. It is imperative that the House of Representatives stay Republican. It is the only check that we conservatives have; it's the only place in government where there is a semblance of a conservative movement. The Senate is just made up of a bunch of moderate fly-by-nights who all think they should be president and they're all planning to run for president one day or another, and they're all a bunch of compromisers and they're not part of movements -- some of them are, but there are too many that aren't and gum up the works. The House of Representatives on immigration has the most responsible, sensible piece of legislation, especially compared to this absurdity, this series of absurdities that constitute Senate legislation.